Tom Powers: Minnesota Gophers stumble on the ol' one, two

It's now official. Tim Brewster and his assistant coaches have passed their initiation.

No man can truly call himself coach of the Golden Gophers football team until his insides get ripped out. Until he is laid so low that he crawls to the team bus on all fours. It's a rite of passage.

The Gophers have suffered some hideous losses over the years. Add Saturday's to the list. Sure, the Gophers already have lost a lot this year. But not like this. This was a beauty.

"I can't even tell you how bad this hurts," Brewster said.

Don't worry, you'll get used to it.

The Gophers led Northwestern 35-14 late in the third quarter. Brother Brewster was so fired up on the sideline that he appeared to be speaking in tongues. Then his team collapsed. Interception, interception, fumble, bad decision - and into overtime we went.

"This is hard, guys," Brewster said. "When you pour your heart and soul into something like we do . . ."

Heart and soul are good. But it wouldn't hurt to pour some brains into the mix.

Northwestern scored to go ahead 49-42 in the second overtime. Then the Gophers scored to tie it. At least that's what we assumed. But Brewster decided to go for two points and the victory. It was an odd call to say the least. The two-point conversion failed, and the Wildcats won 49-48.

Brewster now joins the select company of Glen Mason, Jim Wacker, John Gutekunst and other former Gophers coaching "greats.

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" He nearly reached a grand peak - a Big Ten Conference road victory - but suddenly slid face first down the side of the mountain.

Poor execution, bad decisions and careless plays turned what could have been a wonderful afternoon into a living hell.

Congratulations to the new coaching staff. They now are truly Golden Gophers.

"It's a tough game to deal with, but we'll learn from it," Brewster said.

Of all the odd moves in the game, the decision to go for two seemed the screwiest. Why not kick the extra point and keep playing? Maybe the defense never would have stopped anyone. But the other team could always make a mistake.

I don't get it.

"My team deserved to win," Brewster explained. "I felt a hundred percent that we'd get the two."

I still don't get it.

"I think coach Brewster was in the position where he had to go for the two-point conversion," Minnesota running back Amir Pinnix said. "It was the right call."

But why?

"No matter how you look at it, it was the right call to make," Gophers quarterback Adam Weber said. "Simple execution and we're all happy and celebrating right now."

I keep looking at it, but I don't see it. Brewster said he decided before his team's possession in the second overtime that he would go for two after a touchdown. He said he told his guys.

"We score, we're going to go for two and we're going to win the football game," Brewster said.

Except it didn't happen that way. Weber, rolling out, could not get the ball to Eric Decker before getting dragged down.

"I'd do it again, tonight, tomorrow, the next day," Brewster said.

OK, but I would have kicked the extra point and lived to keep fighting. I can understand Brewster not wanting to see that defense of his on the field anymore. And it's true that, as of the third overtime, teams must attempt a two-point conversion after a touchdown.

But he didn't have to go for broke right there in the second OT. He was being unnecessarily daring.

"If we were in the same position, I'd want to go for two again and go for the win," Gophers center Tony Brinkhaus said.

At least everyone is sticking to the same story. That said, Minnesota screwed up so many times after getting ahead 35-14 that we shouldn't put too much emphasis on that one decision. The Gophers couldn't even run out the clock in regulation.

On third and 5 from Northwestern's 27, and with about two minutes left, Weber appeared to have an open running lane. Instead, he threw incomplete, stopping the clock. Joel Monroe missed a field-goal attempt, and within seconds the score was tied.

All in all, it was horrible. However, it's nothing we haven't seen before.

"We can feel sorry for ourselves all we want, but it's not going to help us next weekend," Gophers defensive tackle Eric Small said.

A Big Ten victory away from home, even if it's against Northwestern, is a big deal. For almost three quarters, the Gophers appeared to be approaching the on-ramp of the highway to Pasadena. They ended up on the road to ruin.